


With a Whimper

by You_Light_The_Sky



Series: Snow in Mirrors [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Gen, M/M, Magical Realism, Post Apocalyptic World, ambiguous ending, character death (sort of), creepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no one anywhere, for blocks and blocks. It’s as if they’re the last two people in London (and maybe anywhere.)</p><p>Chinese Translation Available</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Whimper

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 30 Day OTP challenge on tumblr, the prompt was "cuddling somewhere." It's a short drabble that might be expanded upon later.
> 
> The title comes from a line in the poem "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot.
> 
> CHINESE TRANSLATION [ HERE ](http://221dnet.211.30i.cn/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=3867) by fay2205. Please register on the forum first before you view it.

There’s no one anywhere, for blocks and blocks. It’s as if they’re the last two people in London (and maybe anywhere.) Except that’s a lie, of course, or at least John considers it to be a lie. London is as crowded as ever, with figures standing in the street around them, buried under layers of hard snow.

They just don’t move. They haven’t moved in a long time, now fixed sculptures of flesh and ice that stand as testament with the rest of the city of their history. John has stopped staring at them a long time ago. It disturbs him to see the empty and frost eaten eyes of various men and women, all wearing varying degrees of horror and rage. He half expects them to jump at him and eat his flesh, like the zombies that he and Sherlock destroyed in Paris.

But they don’t. They remain still, eternally transfixed in their moments of death.

John swallows slowly and continues limping forward, each foot step buried completely in the snow. Sherlock groans by his side and nearly slips from John’s grip but John holds on, keeps Sherlock’s arm slung over his shoulder. He ignores the dark trail of crimson that traces their path from the outskirts of the city to where they are now. It will lead the _other_ towards their location but John can’t care anymore.

Not when Sherlock has been cut.

As if on cue, his partner’s head slumps forward, eyes barely open. John hisses and nudges Sherlock sharply in the ribs, “Oh no, you don’t, Sherlock. Stay awake for me, fight back, come on.”

Sherlock mutters something but he looks directly at John, some coherence still left even if John can see the frost beginning to form cracks against Sherlock’s grey irises and the pupil of his eyes. Tinges of blue and white have begun to flow from the large gash on Sherlock’s side, the one that John can’t touch without being hurt by the intense hit of cold himself.

It’s spreading now, hardening into sleets of ice that are slowly arching from the cut to other parts of Sherlock’s chest and his back. John bits his lip and begins to hasten his limping steps. Sherlock needs to rest, they need to operate or try to patch up the cut or _something—_

(But nothing stops a cut, no needle or thread can close the wound once it has been opened. Nothing can stop its spread, John has seen it happen too many times now; Anthea, Mycroft, Lestrade and now...)

“No,” John mutters to himself. That won’t happen to Sherlock. He won’t become one of them. John will save him (somehow) and stop the _other_ before it’s too late.

It’s getting dark. The sun is beginning to set and John desperately breaks into an old cafe, looks around for the heating system so that he can get it running and let Sherlock lie against it. He doesn’t take long, the architecture and design of the building make the location of the heater obvious. With practised movements and a few bangs, John manages to get the heater running.

He props Sherlock up, takes off his coat and ignores the sensation of the chill, to drape it over Sherlock. Then he tears off his mitts and hat to pull them on Sherlock’s fingers and head as another layer, anything to slow down the infection.

Very slowly, Sherlock tilts his head upwards and looks at John, “...Ironic... isn’t it? I always... thought... I’d be shot to death...”

“Shut up, you idiot,” John says because it’s what they do, it’s how they normalize their reactions. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll make it through this. Plenty more cases to solve once we put the _other_ back in the mirror.”

Sherlock gives a weak snort but it turns into a dry cough. When he lifts his hands, the ends of the gloves reveal a little thread of skin, skin that is beginning to freeze over with the infection.

John feels like the infection has hit his heart too, only it has actually splintered his heart into several shards and pieces. “It’s spreading.” Much faster than they thought.

“Obviously,” is the sharp retort.

“Here, let me—”

“ _No!_ ” Sherlock snaps, turning away from John, “If you touch it, the infection will spread to you and I refuse to let your stupid sentimentality kill you—”

“Well, I don’t bloody care!” John shouts, grabbing Sherlock’s hand as the infection begins to crawl up his fingers, “Let it freeze me because there’s no way I’m walking out of here with you!”

Sherlock hisses, trying to pry his hand away (“You fool!” he roars, and probably would have punched John if he could move his upper limbs) as the infection covers Sherlock’s gloves and then it touches John’s skin but—

Nothing happens.

They both stare incredulously at their intertwined fingers.

The infection spreads up and down, towards Sherlock’s thighs and up to his collarbone and scarf but it does not touch John. He can feel the sharp coolness of the ice, numbing his skin and yet the ice does not try to take him, not yet.

“He’s waiting,” Sherlock whispers, “he’s saving you for last, of course.”

“Typical,” John chokes the words out, “even the _other_ can’t give me reprieve from all this.”

“Don’t,” Sherlock says sharply. “Just don’t.”

-

It started with a mirror, one that had been locked away and stolen from an old family. There were rumours about the mirror, about a thing trapped inside just waiting for its other half to set it free. But until then, anyone who took the mirror from its resting place was never heard from again.

Naturally, Sherlock thought it was a ridiculous legend. “We may be able to reanimate the dead, John, but only the flesh returns as a soulless creature. Souls can’t return or be trapped within objects, it isn’t possible,” he had said and that was that.

John always found it strange that Sherlock was an expert in all things to do with crime and the occult and yet he never believed in anything that he saw until it was proven by science. Magic could bring back zombies and make certain tasks easier but it wasn’t possible to bring life or sustain it for beyond it’s time. That was one of the cardinal rules of magic.

Not that John would know much about the subject. He was an expert in healing spells alone but rubbish at anything else. The magic just wouldn’t listen to him. It would just chuckle and skip around him, only happily assisting when he was working on a patient. But magic loved Sherlock, it flocked around him and did his beckoning whether it be to set fire to the rubbish bin (or John’s wardrobe) or to throw dung at Mycroft whenever he visited (the presence of the umbrella made so much more sense now.)

But any stories about spirits and haunted items, of souls lingering and waiting for vengeance, were never subjects that Sherlock took much notice in.

It was in a case that they acquired this mirror, when the owner had died and there was no one else to inherit it. Sherlock had been curious and decided to experiment on it if only to prove to the rest of Scotland Yard that their fears and superstitions were invalid. John had watched Sherlock poke and prod at the mirror (a long circular shape with a handle that looked to be made of crystal snowflakes), dip it in various acids and spells but never did the mirror crack or crumble.

“Those must be some strong protective spells,” John remembers clucking.

Sherlock had scowled at him and continued trying to burn the thing up.

(Maybe it would have been better if it had.)

After numerous other attempts to learn the mirror’s secrets, Sherlock had grown so frustrated at it that he’d thrown it against the wall, knowing that it would probably be undamaged. Even John had expected this by now.

The mirror shattered upon impact.

And then, as the shards dug into the wall, creating cracks of black and frost, the _other_ had stepped out.

-

“...John... John, its cold...”

“I know, Sherlock, I know,” he replies, unable to look as the ice creeps up Sherlock’s neck and takes the rest of his legs. The consultant’s hand has now frozen permanently between John’s fingers. Neither of them can let go if they try and John doesn’t want to.

He leans in against Sherlock’s shoulder, puts an arm around him, ignoring how the cold bites through his clothes and seeps into his body. If he can give Sherlock any lasting warmth, any lingering taste, then John will do it. He curls up against Sherlock and wonders if he can will his life into Sherlock’s freezing wound.

Stiffly, with several high pitched cracks, Sherlock turns his head, the ice on his neck cracking into little cuts and blue wounds, so that his lips rest against John’s brow.

“...Thank you...”

His breath leaves chills trailing down throughout John’s nerves but John doesn’t move from his spot.

-

The _other_ had stepped into their sitting room, regarding it with a critical and amused eye until his gaze lingered on Sherlock and John in particular with a certain hunger.

His Sherlock had stepped back in shock, “No, it can’t be... who are..? You must be in disguise or a spell of some kind—”

The _other_ had scoffed in such a familiar and exact way that John had shivered. “Really, my other half has to be more intelligent than this. After all, I am you and you are me. We’re the same,” the other had stepped forward, holding the handle of the broken mirror like a jagged knife (there was still a shard attached to it, sharper than any blade John had seen before), “and you set me free.”

“The mirror was a door, a door to another world, trapping you there,” his Sherlock had realized.

“Oh yes,” said the _other_ , “a door to a parallel universe. The Sherlock before you locked me up during the Victorian era. Isn’t fitting that his reincarnation would release me because he was curious? And now I can finish what I started...” he had looked at John then, something more dangerous lurking there, “and reunite with what was mine.”

It was then that the _other_ had charged at his Sherlock, just as John pushed his Sherlock out of the way and punched the _other_ in the face. John had pulled Sherlock towards the door, down the stairs, mind racing with new impossibilities (parallel worlds, trapped souls, and... and the _other—_ )

“Boys?” Mrs. Hudson had gasped, startled from the kitchen, “What’s all the commotion for? Did something happen? Another experiment blown up?”

“Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock had roared, “get out of the way!”

But no sooner had Sherlock tried to warn her, when the _other_ had floated down through the floor ( _what magic is this?_ ) and then cut Mrs. Hudson with his jagged mirror-knife. To their horror, Mrs. Hudson had fell down against the floor, the wound spilling out in blue and slowly creeping up her leg, freezing more of her.

“What is this?” John had gasped and this time, Sherlock was the one dragging him out of 221B as if the devil was on their heels (and maybe he was, but the _other_ is—)

“A snow demon, another me.”

-

They had run then, far as they could, trying to warn those they ran into. But the infection rate had spread as those who fell to the infection began to move at night, mindless drones to do the _other_ ’s bidding. As soon as the sun set, all the ice statues (the victims) began to crack and move, cutting any humans they could find, infecting more and more until...

-

It’s getting dark. Soon the sun will set. Soon the frozen will move again and they’ll come for the last human(s) left.

Sherlock’s breaths are hollow and he’s reaching for John, grabbing at John’s wrists, murmuring, “...Promise me.... Promise... you’ll fight back.”

John can feel ice trailing down his cheeks but he thinks they must be tears, frozen from exposure to the air. He refuses to tear his hand from Sherlock’s frozen grip. He refuses to look away from the ice finally creeping over Sherlock’s eyes... over his lips...

“I promise,” John whispers, if only to make it less painful when Sherlock is frozen over, so that his lips stop moving, “I promise,” he says again when really all he wants to do is beg, _please, please don’t be infected. Please don’t be dead-alive._

He doesn’t say that though.

“You’re brilliant,” John says, because it should have been said to Sherlock, every day, always. Because it’s true. Because, because, well, how else can he say that he...?

Sherlock gives a final quirk, his last smile, as the ice touches it and takes his breath.

“...So... are... you... my... Wats—”

His heartbeat has stopped and John can’t let go of the frozen man, not even when the sun goes down completely.

Instead he waits.

For the other frozen to come, for his frozen Sherlock to wake, for the end that John has no idea if he’ll win or not (what can one broken doctor do against a snow demon? Against the _other..._ the _other_ who knows him just as well as... as...)

John lets out a sigh as he hears the entrance to the cafe begin to open.

As he faces the _other_ Sherlock Holmes, he does not let go of _his_ Sherlock’s hands.

“This is the way the world ends.”


End file.
